Hillary Clinton honored for her work on HIV/AIDS

NEW YORK (AP) — Elton John honored Hillary Rodham Clinton for her work to help those affected by HIV and AIDS at an annual event for his foundation.

Clinton was excited as she accepted the first founders award from the Elton John AIDS Foundation on Tuesday night in New York. The former secretary of state told the crowd at Cipriani's restaurant that "we still have so far to go" when it comes to helping those affected by HIV and AIDS.

"There are so many challenges in front of us," Clinton said. The former U.S. senator added that she wants to see an "AIDS-free generation" and that accomplishing that must be "our north star."

"I thank you, but I know there's more for us to do," she said. "Humans may discriminate, but viruses don't."

Billy Joel, Alec Baldwin, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Lisa Marie Presley and Courtney Love also attended John's "An Enduring Vision: A Benefit for the Elton John AIDS Foundation" event. Recent Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Heart performed a dozen songs, including the hits "What About Love" and "Alone."

"One of my favorite bands of all time!" John yelled before Heart hit the stage.

John was passionate throughout the night, urging the attendees that there should be AIDS "treatment for everyone, treatment for all."

"We must never give up on anyone," he said, adding that those who want to help have to be "stubborn" when it comes to finding ways to assist those affected by AIDS.

The event raised $1 million through an anonymous donor and more funds through an auction, which included a lunch with Anderson Cooper for $12,000 and a one-hour tennis lesson with Novak Djokovic for $60,000. Two different signed photos of John taken by Terry O'Neill went for $26,000 and $27,000.

Matt Lauer hosted the gala, filling in for Cooper, who was on assignment in Washington, D.C. He provided laughs at the start of the event but received helped from John's partner, David Furnish, who also worked to facilitate the program.

John's foundation is celebrating its 20th year. Before presenting Clinton with her award, John paid tribute to Furnish.

"We are a week away from our 20th anniversary," he said to gushes from the crowd.

John added that he was touched by Clinton's speech in Geneva, when she declared that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights."

John told the AP before the event that he hopes Clinton runs for president in 2016.

"She's a great human rights campaigner for people of color, for people of sexual orientation," he said. "She's made our fight easier by being such a staunch supporter of AIDS and for people's human rights."

Clinton also headlined a New York fundraiser on Tuesday night for Terry McAuliffe, a longtime family friend who is running for Virginia governor.

She has largely avoided political events this year but is helping McAuliffe and New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, a former campaign aide. Clinton plans to publicly endorse McAuliffe at a campaign event in Falls Church, Va., on Saturday.

___

Associated Press entertainment producer John Carucci contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-honored-her-hiv-aids-043550738.html
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iPad 5, iPhone 5S to drive Apple's holiday season -- report

The iPhone 5S is outselling the iPhone 5C at a ratio of 2.5-to-1, according to one analyst, and that pace should continue through the rest of the year.

Apple's iPhone 5S is significantly outpacing the iPhone 5C in sales, and at least one analyst believes that trend will continue into the holiday season.

The iPhone 5S is outselling the iPhone 5C at a ratio of 2.5-to-1, Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday. That news is obviously good for Apple, which generates more revenue on the iPhone 5S than iPhone 5C, but it also cements Walkley's belief that Apple will sell 52.5 million iPhones during the last quarter of the year.

The first quarter of 2014 should also be bolstered by China Mobile, Walkley said. The crown jewel in Apple's wireless plans should finally start shipping the iPhone early next year to its more than 750 million subscribers, which could add over 10 million iPhone unit sales to Apple's financials, Walkley said.

The iPad 5 could also be a winner for Apple through the rest of the year. Walkley believes Apple will announce a major iPad 5 redesign at its special event on October 22 that will spur increased sales. Walkley is also unsure when the iPad Mini with Retina display might hit store shelves, further complicating sales forecasts on that device. Therefore, in the short-term, Apple could expect the iPad 5 to drive its tablet sales.

"We are modeling iPad 5 and iPad Mini units at 12.9M/11.5M for the December quarter," Walkley wrote to investors. "We anticipate this sales mix will reverse to 8.4M/14.4M in the March quarter driven by the delayed launch of a refreshed iPad Mini with Retina display and increased iPad Mini demand from international markets, particularly in China around Chinese New Year."

One other tidbit from the Walkley report: he expects Apple to launch its long-awaited smartwatch and television at some point in its 2015 fiscal year, which starts in October of 2014.

Walkley has reiterated his "buy" recommendation on Apple shares and has upped his 12-month price target to $580.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57607727-37/ipad-5-iphone-5s-to-drive-apples-holiday-season-report/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple
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Readers Lament 'International Herald Tribune' Name Change

Media

Readers Lament 'International Herald Tribune' Name Change

Digital Life

New Numbers Back Up Our Obsession With Phones

Media

Monitoring For Signs Of Bias In Media's Shutdown Reporting

Research News

Open-Access Journals Hit By Journalist's Sting

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/14/233772676/readers-lament-international-herald-tribune-name-change?ft=1&f=1006
Tags: nfl standings   Derrick Thomas   clemson   Dick Van Dyke   Teen Choice Awards  

Matthew Perry & Lizzy Caplan Broke Up HOW LONG AGO!?!?!

What the WHAT!!

Keeping a secret in Hollywood is one thing, keeping a relationship a secret is another, but having a breakup kept a secret is a feat manageable by few in Hollywood!

So big congratulations go out to Lizzy Caplan and Matthew Perry! You've won the award for longest time no one knew you were broken up!

…let alone even dating!

An insider said recently:

"[The split] happened a year and a half ago. They haven't been together for a long time."

Though their break-up went under the radar, which, again, is pretty much unheard of in Hollywood, they did have a nice long relationship since apparently they dated from 2006 - 2012!

Six years is like 60 years in Hollywood terms!! LOLz!!

Though we're sad the two have parted ways, it's nice to see they've both moved on!

Kudos to you two!!!

[Image via Alberto Reyes/WENN.]

Tags: 2012, award, breakup, broken, broken up, congratulations, film flickers, gifs, haven, hollywood, interview, love line, matthew perry, official, relationship, sad, secret, tv news, what the what, years

Source: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-19-matthew-perry-lizzy-caplan-dating-broken-up-long-time-what
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'Nature' Is Back To Show You Both Adorable Otters And Sad Science

In the last couple of years, there's been a surge of what you might call "cool PBS," by which I just mean social-media-friendly stuff like Sherlock and Downton Abbey that sort of expands people's ideas of what public television is and especially what its relationship to pop culture is.

But that's not a reason to overlook classic, documentary-making, nature-liking, animal-hugging PBS, which brings us to tonight's return of Nature, produced by WNET in New York, which debuts its new season Wednesday night with "Saving Otter 501." (8:00 pm in many places, but check your local listings, as always.)

This is the story of how the Monterey Bay Aquarium makes its 501st attempt to save an orphaned otter and release her back into the wild. They feed her, they teach her, they even place her with a surrogate mother. (The whole thing is narrated by Daniel Stern, which, for children of the '80s, gives it a whole nostalgic Wonder Otter Years quality that's downright diabolical.) While the special contains more adorable, awesome otter footage than you can shake a ... flipper? ... at, it doesn't take a monster to ask the question: Is this worth it, for one baby otter?

Well, as it turns out, California's wild otter population is pretty tiny and heavily concentrated, and there's that funny thing about ecosystems: otters are one of the few predators that urchins have, and urchins eat kelp, so if you follow the math, otters are necessary to protect kelp from being overrun in the creation of — no kidding — "urchin barrens." Yikes.

There's a nice line-straddling here between "Look at nature; nature is cool!" and "Look how much we're having to do just to keep from wiping out this entire animal, like, as a thing that exists." The scientists are careful to stress that this is only worth doing if it ultimately benefits the wild population, not if it results in a bunch of hand-raised otters being released into Monterey Bay to take food out of the mouths of the wild otters that remain.

They've been making Nature for 30 years; long enough that I remember griping about my parents using our first VCR to tape it when I undoubtedly was desperate to tape something else (probably something terrible). It might not be slick, but it's entertaining and informative, and if you're wildlife-minded, it's worth remembering that it's still there, as lovely as ever.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/10/16/235362739/nature-is-back-to-show-you-both-adorable-otters-and-sad-science?ft=1&f=1048
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Wynton Marsalis Goes Back To Church

Damien Sneed assembled his 70-member Chorale Le Chateau to perform Wynton Marsalis Abyssinian Mass with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Frank Stewart/Jazz at Lincoln Center

Damien Sneed assembled his 70-member Chorale Le Chateau to perform Wynton Marsalis Abyssinian Mass with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Frank Stewart/Jazz at Lincoln Center

Wynton Marsalis is sipping hot tea in a church conference room before the evening's performance. His custom-made Monette Raja trumpet — with its built-in mouthpiece and black opal inlays — sits by his side. He's riffing on one of his favorite subjects: the universality of rhythm.

"That rolling 6/8 rhythm is in African religious music, it's in Anglican religious music," he says, humming a complicated pattern and tapping his fingers on his notebook. "In a slower tempo it would be 'Greensleeves.'" He scats the melody. "Now stay in that time, here's the African 6/8 ... now let's go into the jazz shuffle." More tapping. "It's the same rhythm."

"So all the musics are related," he concludes.

Marsalis is going back to church. The 52-year-old Grammy- and Pulitzer-winning trumpeter, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, has created a sprawling work called Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration. The piece, which amalgamates secular and sacred music, is currently on a 16-city tour.

"All the musics are related." That's a good way to get into the Abyssinian Mass — nearly two-and-a-half hours long, with intermission. This composition digs deeply into what Marsalis would call "the soil" of the black church: its shouts, its dirges, its spirituals, its hymns of praise. With this work, he celebrates the seminal influence the church has had on the music of black Americans, and the continuing pull it exerts on his own artistic and spiritual life.

Marsalis used the joyful stylings of the African American gospel tradition to deliver a musical message of universal humanity. He says he tried to put it all in there: God and Allah, exultation and the blues, Saturday night and Sunday morning.

"The Abyssinian Mass tries to cover a lot of different types of music and put them together and show how they come from one expression," he says, "as the mass itself is about everyone has a place in the house of God."

Back In Church

Marsalis was commissioned to write this piece for the 2008 bicentennial celebration of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

YouTube

A clip from the 2008 performance of Abyssinian: A Gospel Celebration.

His composition follows the progression of a Roman Catholic service. When he was growing up in New Orleans, his mother, Delores, would take him to St. Francis Catholic Church, where he remembers the order of the mass from the Devotional through the Gloria Patri to the Benediction.

"I love the form of the mass because when I was younger I was always wondering when would it be over?" he says. "I started to notice the form, OK, when they get to this part it's almost over."

Every section of Marsalis's musical mass, like the Catholic mass, is distinct from the other parts. His lithe, 15-piece band charges into the spaces in between, playing complex sectional counterpoint — horns against reeds — that would make Duke Ellington smile down from heaven.

The musicians say Marsalis's creations are challenging. They always contain at least one passage that requires virtuosic playing.

"We're so used to playing Wynton's extended works we're always looking for that in the music," says Vincent Gardner, the trombone section leader. He has played with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for 13 years. "So when we get a new piece, the first thing we do is flip through it and find the part that has all the notes. Because you know it's in there somewhere. It's just a matter of finding it and getting it under your fingers and then you can play it."

'The Breath Of God'

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — regarded as one of the world's best big bands — is surrounded onstage by the 70-voice Chorale Le Chateau. It takes its name from Damien LeChateau Sneed, the 34-year-old choir director and conductor of the mass. Sneed is a producer, arranger, conductor, teacher, keyboardist and sought-after gospel music director. He handpicked 70 of the top gospel and opera singers in the country — ranging in age from 21 to 70 — just for this tour. He says he plans to re-assemble this dream team for future projects.

"The choir brings the fire and the choir brings the truth to the Abyssinian Mass," he says. "The choir brings the spirit, it's like the haaaaaa, the breath of God."

YouTube

Wynton Marsalis and Damien Sneed discuss the Abyssinian Mass.

The evening's concert took place in Charlotte's African-American mega-church, the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. That made it special for many of the singers and players, whose first exposure to music was in a church pew. Sneed, for instance, grew up in the Baptist church in Augusta, Ga.

"And I think every note, every phrase, every rest, every chord will have more meaning just because of the fact that we are allowed to express ourselves not just in a performance hall but in a place of worship," Sneed says.

The choristers, in their burgundy robes, sing a capella hymns in lush seven- and eight-part harmonies one minute; the next minute they're swaying and hand-clapping to a swinging gospel number while the trombones growl in assent.

"The piece just has so many parts to it," says mezzo soprano Patricia Eaton. "It was an extraordinary experience, it is an extraordinary experience. I'm excited and yet I am lifted to another place as a religious experience."

The Abyssinian Mass sold out all 3,500 seats in the sanctuary of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. The audience was also a congregation. They amen-ed and shouted encouragement and interrupted the performance with standing ovations.

After it was over, Dr. Clifford Jones, longtime senior minister at the church, searched for words big enough to express his reactions.

"Exhilarating, powerful, inspirational, affirming of both religion and culture," he said, beaming.

An elderly African-American woman, who did not give her name, when asked what she thought of jazz and blues being played in her church, answered simply: "This is where it started so it's good to have it back home."

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/19/237141507/wynton-marsalis-goes-back-to-church?ft=1&f=1039
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GoDaddy Buys Media Temple To Build Up Its Business With Web ...

Domain registration and hosting company GoDaddy is continuing on its acquisitions roll, with the announcement today that it acquired Media Temple, a premium domain hosting and website services company based out of Los Angeles that targets website development professionals. Financial terms are not being disclosed. [Update: But website builder Virb that Media Temple bought in 2011 is spinning out.]

This is GoDaddy’s sixth acquisition in 15 months, but MT (as it is known) will stand apart from the rest in two ways. The first is that it’s taking GoDaddy deeper into premium services, catering to those who publish content specifically to be consumed on the web; and the second is that it will be the first acquisition that GoDaddy intends to operate as a separate business, staffed by MT’s 225 existing employees, rather than integrating into GoDaddy’s existing operations, which currently serve 12 million customers with over 4,000 employees.

Part of the reason for this, GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving says, is because of Media Temple’s existing size and position in the market. It has 125,000 customers for its premium website management services, and it hosts over 1.5 million websites, with some 88 percent classified as being for “advanced web and IT services”.

“Media Temple is absolutely killing and a standalone brand, and it has an incredible technology,” Irving said in an interview. “We can learn a lot from them, whether it’s in infrastructure or customer acquisition. There is a ton of things that we can learn on the developer and marketing sides. We can continue and invest in and accelerate its growth without integrating. We think it’s a much smarter move for Media Temple to let them remain as their own business.”

Media Temple is a startup that is a little long in the tooth: it’s been around since 1998, growing up in tandem with the wider web. In that time, its founders have raised money ($16.1 million, almost modest by today’s standards), started their own venture fund (now wound down) and built out an impressive list of customers from a mostly bootstrapped enterprise. (Customers include companies like Fifty Three, Drop Stop and LRG to projects for brands like Sony, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, Starbucks, Vogue and Volkswagen.)

As for why MT decided to finally exit after all this time, co-founder Demian Sellfors said that this was always the plan.

“We’ve had our eye on an exit since we started 15 years ago,” he told me. “We regard ourselves as entrepreneurs first and we designed it for exit from the start, even if on the way we accidentally built a phenomenal culture and a business that resounded with the marketplace.” He says that the idea of selling to a much larger company like GoDaddy is to make Media Temple “bigger and better. We are growing nicely but it’s still very humble growth.”

About a year and a half ago, Sellfors helped hire Russ Reeder to run MT, and he will remain in place as its president under GoDaddy, and he echoes the sentiment that this was the best way for MT to continue to grow. “We are excited about this; we’re excited to learn from their scale,” he told me.

For its part, GoDaddy — specifically under Irving (who comes from very senior roles at giants like Microsoft and Yahoo) — has been trying to build out and evolve its business beyond that of a basic web domain registry.

That has included acquisitions and its own product launches to build out different web services for the small businesses that register domains on GoDaddy — these include accounting and payment services, as well as those geared to help them create mobile sites.

Media Temple will help GoDaddy build out more expertise in providing more sophisticated offerings to web-based operations, and will help raise the company’s profile among that class of users for future business. That business, as well, is likely to have higher margins than some of GoDaddy’s existing basic products. MT’s portfolio includes three different classes of web hosting services (priced between $20 and $50 per month), API management, SSL services and CDN (content delivery) services.

Prior to today, GoDaddy’s other recent acquisitions included Ronin for bookkeeping services; Afternic for aftermarket domain registry services (basically a domain resellers’ marketplace); M.dot to help website owners create mobile Internet sites; Locu to help them organize and distribute their business data to other sites/services; and Outright for bookkeeping.

Irving tells me, by the way, that another important area for GoDaddy going forward will be how it expands internationally. Its main site is already available in 30 different languages, but the aim is that by the end of 2015 it will be in some 60 markets with much more localized focus. “Today it’s really about two markets, English and Spanish,” he admitted. “We want to roll out to both Europe and Asia.”

Go Daddy is the Web’s top platform for small businesses and offers everything needed to to grow and manage an online presence, from domain names and website builders to complete eCommerce solutions. The company has earned a place as the world’s #1 ICANN-accredited domain registrar by delivering world-class products at competitive prices and supporting them with industry-best service, delivered 24/7/365.

Go Daddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar and Web hosting provider *

More than 55 million domain...

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(mt) Media Temple, Inc. is a web hosting and virtualization service provider headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Since 1998, the company has provided businesses around the world with reliable, professional-class services to host websites, email, business applications, and other rich Internet content.

The team is comprised of 180+ incredibly smart and friendly employees who help create an award-winning culture. (mt) is an always-on company (24/7/365) with a U.S. based support department serving customers in over 60+ countries. The company offers...

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/15/godaddy-buys-media-temple-to-build-up-its-business-with-web-professionals/
Category: charlie hunnam   Captain Phillips   floyd mayweather   Jack Nicholson   jeff bezos